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Okay, what the hell is going on? Everywhere I look it’s theremin (TV), theremin (film), theremin (novel). Is theremin the new ukelele? The new black? Or is it just out there in the (a)ether(wave), morphically resonating?
Theremin on television
All over Twitter this last week was the episode of American Horror Story: Coven titled “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks”. Yes, Stevie Nicks made an appearance. (That’s up there in a sort of alternate universe way with Kim Gordon‘s recent (non-singing) appearance in the season 3 premier of Girls. These viewing treasures still await those of us not in North America.)
I’ve not ...

At this time of year it is, as we all know, traditional to sum up the best and worst of the year just gone, and/or make plans, resolutions or predictions for the year to come. I’m feeling a bit sandblasted by the thought of doing that (maybe it’s just the Wellington wind). But I’ll give it a bit of a go at the end of this post. I’m chuffed that my own novel made it onto a few “best” lists for 2013, and I’d like to shout proudly about those those; but if I’m doing that, it’s only fair to ...

A week or so before Christmas, I was delighted to find out that I’ve been awarded the inaugural R.A.K. Mason Writer’s Fellowship. This’ll give me a room to live and write in for three weeks in April 2014.
The new fellowship is offered by New Zealand Pacific Studio, Mt Bruce, Wairarapa. The call-out stated “the purpose of this Fellowship is to explore different literary forms or genres and their potential”, and invited applications from “writers working in, or across, literary genres in interesting ways”.
New Zealand Pacific Studio is a nonprofit organisation that offers residencies to creative practitioners and researchers at its ...

Posting on the excellent Killings blog on the Kill Your Darlings journal website last week, S.A. Jones mused on why great Australian books are being overlooked. Writing in the wake of The Small Press Network’s Most Underrated Book Awards of 2013, Jones considered what it means to be ‘underrated’. She quoted MUBA 2013 nominee Ginger Briggs:
it’s like winning the award for the prettiest girl who was never invited to the prom
Jones mused on the often tenuous relationship between critical praise and book sales, marketing as ‘a beguiling distraction that eats into writing time’, and whether:
for Gen X readers like myself, the ...

The review by Ian Williams in the Otago Daily Times (Saturday 23 November 2013) of The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt grabbed me — and not in a good way — with its opening sentence:
I meant to send this first novel back to the books editor, it seemed so obviously a “woman’s book”.
I was poised to get all outraged and shouty, on so many levels. But I’m a shallow creature, amenable to praise, so what followed quickly soothed any rage away. I’m delighted to say that Williams took to my “woman’s book” with gusto:
But it only took a few pages before The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt took ...

On Saturday 21 September, at Mighty Mighty in Wellington, Dame Fiona Kidman declared “The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, and your mysterious gorgeous character, well and truly launched”. Here’s a taste of how the evening progressed. You can find more photos online here.
The velvet curtain backdrop of the Mighty matched the novel’s cover, displayed gloriously by Alex and Todd on the Unity Books table.
Performances by Erika Grant on cello — Lena’s first love — and and Nell Thomas on theremin — the instrument Lena becomes famous for playing — provided a beautiful, fitting sonic ambience, and were the perfect illustration of what’s central ...

Phar Lap. Crown Studios Ltd :Negatives and prints. Ref: 1/2-203509-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22805634
Yesterday, my novel was released. As is the way with these things, though, the book has already been in bookshops for about a week or so (yes, I’ve been looking) , and has had its first few (very nice) reviews (here and here and here). I’m visiting Perth, Western Australia — where I grew up, and where my publisher is based — at the moment, visiting family and talking about the novel, and there’s one question that everyone (everyone) has asked me: So. Are you a New Zealander now, or are you Australian?
I really don’t know ...

It’s been a week for (very) short fiction, for me — a nice change from the long slog of the novel.
Back in May this year, as the deadline for 2013 National Flash Fiction Day (NFFD) competition — for stories of 300 words or fewer — was approaching, the NFFD folks (in NZ Society of Authors Newsletter Friday 17/5/13) asked 2012 finalists “What’s so great about flash?”. Here’s what I said:
My first fiction published in print, back at the tail end of last century, was flash fiction, so it’s a form I’m fond of. Not much more than a single page or screen of words, for the ...

It’s always bothered me how little known in Australia are even some of the best New Zealand writers. When I was asked to write a trio of mini-reviews for Perth webzine The Starfish, it seemed the perfect opportunity to rave about New Zealand writers; maybe I’d even be introducing them to a Perth audience. So I chose three novels that I’d read recently, that I’d loved reading, and that were by some of my favourite contemporary New Zealand writers — Stephanie Johnson, Emily Perkins, and Sarah Quigley. You can read what I had to say about their novels — and ...

Fifteen years to the day since I first held my real-life baby, I held, for the first time, my brand new baby. Yes: the advance copy of my debut novel, posted last Friday from my publisher in Australia, arrived in today’s mail. Lena has landed in New Zealand.
I’m feeling a lot less exhausted today than I did fifteen years ago, even though I’ve been carrying this bouncing baby book for a whole lot longer than nine months. There’s a similar sense of wonderment though, of astonishment — did I really produce this?! — and, yes, I’ve had a bit of ...

The first review of my novel was published last week (in Books+Publishing Reviews, 30 May 2013, reproduced here with permission), and reviewer Katie Haydon (who gave it four stars) said it would be appreciated particularly by, among others, “lovers of the sea”. I’m pleased she mentioned that. Water flows through the novel; it’s almost a character in it. It’s of central importance to the novel’s main character, Lena Gaunt.
And for me? I have a complicated relationship with the sea. I was slightly scared of it as a child. That’s long-ago me in the photo, pointing to where the baby whale was, one of those childhood ...

In my novel, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, the eponymous Lena Gaunt – musician, octogenarian, junkie – is Music’s Most Modern Musician; theremin player of legend. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about theremins for the last few years, while I’ve been writing the novel. I may even have become a little obsessed with them (OK, disclosure: so obsessed that last summer I embroidered an RCA theremin on a cushion). Because I’ve been thinking about them so much and for so long, I didn’t quite realise just how unfamiliar a musical instrument the theremin is to most people. I’ve been asked ...